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Burger King, Beverly, MA

Amidst falling sales, a revolving door of chief executives, countless attempts to be cool with "The King," and even a fresh rift with pop diva, Mary J. Blige, we're told in the latest Burger King ad campaign that "Exciting things are happening at Burger King."

Oh really?

When a brand claims such things it's akin to an individual walking into a cocktail party and saying, "Hi, I'm a really interesting guy," to everyone he meets. Anyone, including brands, who has to claim they are interesting or exciting is generally anything but. What I want to say is, just BE interesting and/or exciting, and then those around you will likely judge you kindly.

Now, it's one thing for me to sit here and criticize Burger King's advertising without offering any solutions. And another to put my money where my salivating mouth is. So I approached my Forbes editor, Bruce Upbin, about putting Burger King through an Ideasicle ideation session. With real Ideasicle Experts. Using the actual "Expert Sourcing" virtual-ideation model we are pioneering. With the outcome being real brand ideas for Burger King.

To his immense credit, he said, "Go for it." So we did.

The brand ideas that follow we did completely on our own. We didn't have any access to the Burger King clients, their data, their briefs, nothing. Just massive doses of objectivity and talent with a dash of healthy naiveté. And we took our usual week to do it.

The Ideasicle Experts.

As with all Ideasicle projects, I sent the project description out to all 21 of my Ideasicle Experts to find the perfect team for this unique project. I find that the best ideation happens when different perspectives, talents, and experience, collide in our virtual Expert-Sourcing platform. Of those Experts available and willing, I recruited our retail Expert (we call him "Gravity"), one of our digital Experts ("Vegas"), our Ph.D. in cultural studies ("The Light"), and an ex-Wieden & Kennedy creative director ("The Priest"), for the Burger King team. By the way, we never reveal the true identities of our Experts, as many are holding full-time positions at fancy companies and would like to keep those positions.

Now, team in place, it was time to make them dangerous.

The Brief.

Once the team was recruited, the first thing I did was prepare a video briefing for my Ideasicle Experts team. I didn't want to get too far in the weeds with the briefing, but did paint a high-level competitive picture for them (Subway is healthy, McDonald's is family, Wendy's is about quality beef, KFC owns chicken, etc.), explained some of the business issues BK was facing, as well as some of the recent mishaps.

But my charge to the team was this: how can we make Burger King mean something to people again?

The Virtual Ideation Session.

In no time our virtual walls were plastered with work: partial thoughts, thought starters, inspirations, a few well-thought-out ideas, lots of comments to each others' ideas, idea-building, and plenty of riffing. And that's how it goes at Ideasicle. That's what Expert Sourcing is, and it doesn't take long for the polished gems to emerge, and emerge they did.

In under a week, we had come up with about ten completely different Brand Ideas for Burger King. All of the ideas were grounded in fundamental truths about the brand. None were gratuitous or random acts of marketing. Some were, naturally, stronger than others.

My inspiration Whopper.

And, as I've said many times before, the better ideas make you feel something and the others don't.

So, the time came where I had to decide which three to present (er, put in this Forbes article), so, naturally, I had lunch at the Burger King in Beverly, MA, for inspiration. You can see my proof of purchase (Whopper with cheese, fries, Coke) to the right.

It was delicious, as usual. And provided the brand "immersion" I needed to narrow the field of ideas from ten down to three.

The Brand Ideas.

Each idea that follows is presented exactly like we would normally present an Ideasicle Brand Idea to a paying client. These mini-manifestos are designed to simply articulate the intention of the idea, prove that the idea has legs, and hopefully inspire the client to come up with even more ideas themselves (the true sign of a great brand idea). Think of the following as "flags in the ground" for the brand, each the basis upon which to make informed brand decisions, each the starting point for more potent ideation, each designed to make Burger King, the king of burgers, mean something again.

Note: the "headlines" on each idea slide are not meant to be tag lines, but titles for each idea.

Also, you can click the idea slides below to enlarge them.

Rationale.

What Burger King needs as it looks to go public (again) is not a milquetoast ad campaign that states flat, meaningless claims. More than ever, this brand needs to stop copying others and take a stand. It needs purpose. It needs relevance.

What we’ve tried to do is give Burger King a reason for being. A reason that respects its past, gives relevance to its present, and paves the way for its future. “King Me” does that by redefining customer service in the fast food category. “King Of Grilling” does that by connecting to and owning a highly relevant cultural artifact/activity we all love. And “It’s Not Called Burger Queen,” though we admit it has been tried before in other categories and would require creative finesse to truly differentiate, is our attempt to appeal strongly to one half of the population with the hope that the other half comes along. All of them we believe lend well to loyalty/CRM programs.

But more than that, what we’ve tried to do is give the Burger King brand the respect it deserves by BEING something potent versus just CLAIMING something impotent.

Payment.

Of course, we asked for no money from Burger King to turn the Ideasicle machine on. It made for good fun, and, hopefully, an interesting article. But if BK does decide to use one of our ideas, or even appreciates the effort, we ask that they make a healthy donation to Ideasicle's favorite non-profit, The Center On The Developing Child.

If BK does not decide to use one of our ideas, all I and my Ideasicle Experts can say is, have it your way.